Quest for a Comet!

Rosetta: A comet mission like no other

Did you know "comet" comes from the Greek for "hairy"?!

Long ago comets frightened people. These "hairy stars" were unpredictable and mysterious. Most people thought they were some sort of evil omen.

Now we know that comets are part of our solar system family. They are made of materials left after the Sun, the planets, and the moons were formed. Scientists want to find out all about comets to help fill in the gaps in our knowledge of how the solar system formed.

Scientists would like to study comet materials. They would even like to collect samples of a comet. But bringing a comet sample back to Earth can change the sample. For example,the comet sample might heat up during the return through Earth's atmosphere.

The answer? Let's go to the comet and study it directly!

That is your mission, your "Comet Quest!"

Of course, such a mission is NOT easy. In real life, space scientists explore comets with robotic spacecraft, such as the Rosetta mission.

Rosetta is on its way to 67P/Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko [CHUR-you-mawv Gear-a-sa-MINK-o]. Rosetta is a mission of the European Space Agency, with help from NASA. It will study the comet nucleus for an extended time. It will drop a small lander on the nucleus and orbit for two years. Both orbiter and lander carry many scientific instruments to learn about the comet and how it changes as it approaches the Sun.

You can see these challenges for yourself when you play "Comet Quest".

In "operating" Rosetta, you have five responsibilities:

Arrive at the comet nucleus and drop a lander in a scientifically interesting area.

Observe scientifically interesting things from the lander and the spacecraft.

Receive data from the lander.

Transmit orbiter and lander data to Earth.

Keep Rosetta from crashing into large chunks of comet material that spew from the surface.

Click on questions to learn more!

Where do comets come from?

Short-period comets come from the Kuiper Belt and long-period comets come from the Oort Cloud.

Most comets come from the Kuiper Belt, a region beyond the orbit of Neptune. Comets from this neighborhood usually take 200 years or less to make one orbit around the Sun. These are called short-period comets.

Comets also come from their other hangout, the Oort Cloud, a far-far-distant cloud of comets that surrounds the solar system. Scientists think there could be about a trillion comets orbiting way out there. One trip around the Sun could take one of these comets 30 million years! They are called long-period comets.

What brings comets near Earth?

A comet's "hairy" coma and tails develop as the comet approaches the Sun.

Sometimes the gravitational pull of a passing star stirs up comets in the Oort Cloud. Some might get sent flying into the inner solar system.

Sometimes the gravitational pull of a planet can disturb comets in the Kuiper Belt and fling one headlong toward the Sun.

The Sun's gravitational pull takes over, shaping the comet's path into a lop-sided orbit. The comet is pulled faster and faster toward the Sun, it swings around close to the back-side, then it heads out again to more or less where it came from. Some comets dive right into the Sun, never to be seen again. When the comet is in the inner solar system, either coming or going, that's when we may see it in our skies.

What makes comets look fuzzy?

Halley's Comet, as seen by the European Space Agency's Giotto Mission

When they are at home in the Oort Cloud or Kuiper Belt, comets are just dull, dark chunks of ice, dust, and rock. In this state, they may not be much different from asteroids. But as comets get closer to the Sun and begin to warm up, some of their materials start to boil off. This material forms a cloud around the nucleus. The cloud is called the coma and may be hundreds of thousands of miles across.

What do comets look like up close?

Comet Hartley-2, as seen by the EPOXI spacecraft from 435 mi (700 km).

The nucleus, or solid part, of a comet is usually less than about 6 miles across, but may be as big as about 25 miles across. Recent space missions have given us some close-up views, so we don't have to guess what they look like anymore.

The Deep Space 1 mission found rugged terrain, smooth rolling plains, deep fractures and very, very dark material on Comet Borrelly in 2001. A few years later, space mission Deep Impact flew very close to Comet Tempel 1. That comet also appeared very black on the outside—as black as the charcoal briquettes for your barbeque.

What's inside a comet?

Comet Tempel-1 as it was hit by the impactor sent into its path by the Deep Impact spacecraft.

Comets seem to contain a lot of ice, some rocks and dust, and some gas. Deep Impact crashed a "smart impactor" into Comet Tempel 1 and studied the debris that spewed out. It found that the surface of the comet is very fragile and weak. Inside it is spongy, with lots of holes. It has ice beneath its surface. It contains material from outer, middle, and inner parts of the solar system. Other comets may be different.

Why do comets have tails?

Comet Hale-Bopp with its white dust tail and bright blue ion tail visible from Earth with the unaided eye.

Comet tails appear as the comet approaches the Sun and can grow to be millions of miles long. The particles in the solar wind push the small dust particles in the coma into a long curved path. This tail is known as the dust tail. Another tail, the ion tail, is made of electrically charged molecules of gas. The ion tail points directly away from the Sun.